


Childhood Sunrays

by 07JoeTheBastardo



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bittersweet, Childhood, Childhood Friends, Drunken Confessions, Friends to Lovers, Gay Male Character, M/M, New York City, Poverty, Reader-Insert, male reader - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:35:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25214017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/07JoeTheBastardo/pseuds/07JoeTheBastardo
Summary: Under the searing sun of the summer of ‘96, you led way through old street roads that Erwin was a stranger to.You were patient with him, and you were keeping pace with him, and your grip was neither chafing nor bruising. But you were messy with the sticky feeling of oranges, and cheap Crayola crayons, with a too-big shirt and choppy, uneven hair that somehow suited you. Every motion you created was an animated picture, and it made him want to follow your every move, a dance of two.And then, you left.Told in a series of drabbles.
Relationships: Erwin Smith/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 11





	1. remember me?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I think i'm drunk with the thoughts of you_

1.

He was seven when he first met you. He was the little boy, who dressed prim and proper and had a fitting face, though sullen.

His father was an honest professor that taught the elite and propitious, those in a privileged life. He, ignoring the threats and pleas, never shied away from the reality of the world. He would spend hours on the injustice to the poor, government reforms, and political ideas too ‘radical’ for the school.

He would always get permission to get into his lectures and he would be so memorized when the topic evolved into something so fundamentally different that you had to wonder about it until days later.

And that itself caused tension between his peers. Erwin knew it stemmed from fear and insecurity— he was a seven-year-old kid who was known to outshine his elder peers who were groomed to be the best of the best, so he understood very early on how pride leads you in a leash.

With bruised knees and a bleeding lip, Erwin was chased to the unsavory and poorer parts of town, house projects run down with green moss growing on the sides and grass unevenly and overgrown. It had its discarded concrete sidewalks cracked and uneven from the time.

He knew his father was sick with worry. Frantic, possibly.

But he also only has known the whitewashed walls and red bricks of a home where nothing ever changes in its constant loop. Knowledge is power, and curiosity is the driving compass.

Curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought it back, as the saying goes.

A chained dog ran in upfront, started to bark frantically, mad, only the old chained fence acting as its last barrier. Erwin froze, terror locking his muscles and a tremor broke out, stuck in front of the watered down house with no lights on.

Only for the dog to run away when an orange peel was thrown its way.

His savior was swinging his feet against the chain fence, with ripped jean shorts and a t-shirt too big for you. You had orange peels in one hand and the other gripped to balance.

"Hey, are you sure you ain’t lost?” His childish voice, high and confident, brought and hooked you to the reality.

“I’m sure, thank you for your concern.” His shaken voice, still present, but nonetheless grateful. You frown, tilting your head if to better understand.

“I mean, you walked this way, like, three times.” You hold your fingers up ( a cheap bandage clinging on with God's miracle ) as if to better understand, he held his gaze for a moment or two, breaking contact to look at his clothes, tender red knees, and busted lip.

“Oh.”

You sigh, swinging down from the gate and arching your back, you look at him with a perplexing look, “Well then, c’mon we got a date to go to.”

“I beg your pardon?!”

Under the searing sun of the summer of ‘96, you led way through roads Erwin was a stranger to. You were patient with him, and you were keeping pace with him, and your grip was neither chafing nor bruising. But yours were messy hands.

Messy with the sticky feeling of oranges, and cheap Crayola crayons, with a too-big shirt and choppy, uneven hair that somehow suited you.

Every motion you created was an animated picture, and it made him want to follow your every move, a dance of two.

You are a tour guide in this turning world, like in the first meeting, you hold his hand as you walk and talk through the neighborhood. Talks about Mrs. Jones— the old lunch lady with tattoos and a motorcycle she lets the kids play with, to old man Joe, the man lost it in the war and got a silver tooth, you say.

It's all chaotic and wild, but you move through it all as if it's as flexible and easy as water.

Erwin’s father breaks into wild sobs as soon as he saw his son being led back into the safety of their home. He was too close on calling the police when a boy holding his son’s hand asks for him.

You’re this split-second burst of color that suddenly erupted out of nowhere, and before he could even think, you were already gone. You always were.

Melting into everything, into his hindsight, into the deepest trenches of his memory. You were so abrupt, and blinding, and you made his chest feel weird and you had this presence that both terrified and confused him for some unknown reason.

Through his teenage years, he and you would grow closer. Flashes of memories snapped and froze to twinkle, from the time you and he snuck into a movie, to the time you were forced to get a hair cut and "ran away" to his house.

Childish naïve, as they played tag under the golden rays of the sunset, and counting the bugs underneath the rotting wood with the stars above them. You said that if you squint hard enough, they look like porcupines dancing with each other.

You, in his humble opinion, feels like running away, but not the real kind. More like how you saw it in childhood movies. Running to endless woods that hid magical adventures, running to hills filled with flowers and frogs and grasshoppers. Happy ignorant and not having to prepare but knowing the future of everlasting happiness and sunshine.

He wished he prepared more.

* * *

New York is a city too big for one, yet ironically too small for Erwin.

His work circles towards bringing down the corrupt, from the CEO to the politicians, the rich and influential. He works here because it is his duty and passion. ( But his head is whispering haunting promises of city lights of a boy with ambition in his eyes. )

The percentage of even _meeting_ you again, after all these years is mathematically impossible, how could he? When he left, he wonders, if you still think if him as his childhood friend or imagination of what he could have been.

His wishes ended up being manifested as a piss thrown bagel.

He's walking through the crowds, leaning thinner than other days, when a half-eaten bagel lands on his shiny expensive leather shoe. He grimaces, Hange crackling in the background and Levi tsk with murmuring under his breath.

He looks up, scanning for the culprit, noises in New York are always blended but a voice sticks out from the rest. ( young and deep, a paradoxical dream, he _knows_ this voice ) Arguments, insults and loud voices, he brings his attention to the couple in front of him, and—

The countless heads of ongoing bystanders, and _yet_. You. With the hair that caught the sun's eye, and the wind's kiss blows.

"Y/M!”

You, with caramel factories in your pockets, and rainbows stains on your fingertips, turn around and all breathing is sucked from the tunnel vision of _you._

Your hair is longer now, less wild, and free, and your face is contoured with more chiseled since your childhood days. But your freedom of expression is still painted in your face.

_Surprise, confusion, and realization._

“Erwin? Erwin Smith is that you?!" Your pitch rose as your entire being rose with it, your eyes widen and crinkled, blooming like the dandelions in spring.

"Oh lord, it's really you!" You ran, slipping through the heated lady's threshold, and Erwin already dropped his briefcase as he opened his arms as wide as he could to catch the wild storm of colors that you were.

You hit him with all your force, and from that force of reality that sucked all breath from him, he finally thought he knows what home really is. (He _remembers_ , they were sprawled out on your couch, facing each other, smiling like idiots, mouths stretched so wide our cheeks ached with the strain. )

_I often fantasize about how life would be like with you._

"My God! Jesus, I haven't seen you, in what? Six, seven years? Look how much you have grown!" You pull away just slightly, still entrapped in his arms, as you take a good close look at him for the first time.

And Erwin stares. Stares because in these streets that blur in the background, he can smell the orange soda that you drank under one gulp for a bet and the crackers that you hid away for the zombie apocalypse prep. And then he realizes that he is staring.

"I— yes. We, I mean, I did grow. With, uh, food."

You laugh, and your laughter feels like a dying sun ray directed at him. Like blooming flowers, and with his limited vocabulary he fumbled out the crooked, vague, feeling that waved through his teeth. _When was the last time he was swooned by your laughter?_

You move to speak, and he unconsciously leans forward as if seeking a place to rest, as a shriek of your name breaks through this haze of whatever overcame you two. You blink, your face realizing your situation, and your expression drops, like his stomach, unto one of uncomfortableness and annoyance.

You lean forward and in an entirely exaggerated expression, you crestfallen sigh, “Hear that, Erwin? It's the devil calling my name.” A sharp tug, what else could it be? A sharp poke at his tender heart, _do you hear that?_ A taunting voice, _he's preparing to leave again._

You lean back, tilting your face in the same way when he met you and smile such a sad smile. "It was nice seeing you again, Erwin. Don't be a stranger yeah?"

His finger twitches, his lips parting in anticipation, but he closes in remorse.

"Yeah, let's."

But as you start to pull away, you move with just speed and color as you pull out a sharpie from your pocket. And he's taken back to your phase of always carrying candy in your pockets, no matter the event or temperature.

"Here," you hold your hand out, and Erwin isn't even aware as he instantly drops his whole hand in yours.

The blank ink stings his eyes, as numbers shaped his hand. A smiley face, wobbly and silly, is at the end.

Your face almost splits in half as you smile up at him, "Don't forget to call me tonight, yeah?"

He nods silently, not trusting his words clearly, as you waved through the crowd back to the woman who started to hit you in the head. He takes a step forward, and you throw your head up and start to taunt her as you start to run away.

Reminds you of the time you used to throw orange peels at his peers. You turn around for a second and smile one last time and wave goodbye, and just like his hindsight, you were a hurricane of color that picks him up and disappears immediately.

Even though his colleagues watched their interaction between a well-known blank mask to a complete stranger, he throws his head back and lets out a deep laugh from the credence of his chest. He could act all stoic but his heart doesn’t feel stoic enough to make him serene.

He pockets his hand and ignores the shouts of Hange, and the silent eyes of Levi that probe him for his unanswered questions.

His steps feel lighter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, hello for those coming from my Tumblr page, and hello for those new faces. I'm regrouping and redoing a lot of my old posts to fit a better and new story that will hopefully be more coherent. Hopefully, this will be more active than my other two stories.


	2. i don't really remember you. call me?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _i am so jealous of you_

2.

You climb the stairs, each step growing cancerous on your legs, booking each and every move to a softer night of rest. It's the saddest when you start daydreaming about resting.

But those aren’t meant to be, with the grunt of effort to properly close the lock in the old door, you rest your eyes in the middle of the chaotic mess that littered your living room. Ghosts are better company though, old clothes that fit another person, photos and drawings made by another hand, drying plants hanging miserably in the corner of the drawn-out room.

You wince in sympathy.

You rattle your keys, throwing them in the small coffee table, which also mends as work and study. You stand still for a second, breathing the pictures of the past that don’t match the present. You start to wonder when this became the present, when the old and new clothes of a different person didn’t start to match, or when the room was suddenly too small, and too big, and too cold.

You huff at your own psychological awareness, _bittersweet_ you think.

Didn’t you always complain about thinking too much?

You discard your coat at the foot of the couch, traveling the hallway to the bathroom like a lost phantom with your hands tracing the falling wallpaper. You need to replace that, you think. But you know you won’t.

The cold shower helps though, grounding you for a few more hours before you lose yourself to another round of mindless tasks. It’s only 6 pm after all, and in the city that never sleeps, it’s practically morning still.

Why did you even move here, to begin with? Weren’t you happy in that town? Among the projects with a mute future, but a future nevertheless.

You used to be so ambitious, fire licking at your heels with your mind stuck running circles around the romantic's view of the Big City.

You turn the shower off.

You are starting to seriously hate this apartment. With only paying 600 dollars, it’s practically a steal, but is it really worth the energy to gather the hate pooling in your chest as you clap your hands over the noises your neighbors were making? The noise shamelessly waving through the thin walls.

It seems they are being more affectionate tonight.

The trails of your thoughts are erased clean off when your phone blink to light, the blue light stabs your eyeballs hard enough to leave an impression behind your eyelids.

You grumble, your fingers swiping mindlessly through the act made thousands of times before, to see a message from _Unknown._

> _Hello, this is Erwin Smith, y/n. We met earlier today._

“Holy fucking SHIT!” The phone almost slips through your frantic fingers, bringing the phone screen closer to your face. A strange feeling blooming in your chest, getting yourself to a memory of hidden letters pushed under locked doors, like a secret agent’s mission not be caught.

You didn’t realize that smiling hurts your face so much.

You quickly change that _Unknown_ to _ERWIN <3_ like you used to do. Should you send a quick message, test the waters to see if he’s still around?

> _HEEEYY! LONG TIME _—__

You quickly delete that. Yeah, no. It sounds way too informal as if you didn't drop from the face of the earth, but then again it was your idea to do this. With Erwin, it’s always been formal, except for those hidden moments when they were still young.

Maybe?

> _Hey Erwin! How have you been? It’s been too long!_ send.

Is that good enough? Should you have written him in the hidden phrases with codes that you two would debate on, nights that dragged on for long hours until Erwin’s father had to step in and remind you two that it was a school night. 

In the summer of 1996, your fingers stained red from the popsicle, and your teeth crooked with caramel stuck between them, you were eight and he was seven. Has it really been 24 years?

When was Erwin’s birthday again? October 14, right? Was he born in the morning or in the afternoon, what should you get him? He’s like autumn, that’s what you properly remember now. Always silently creeping in, just perfect as he is, never missing a beat. 

A bittersweet smile, your chest feeling a bit heavier than before, the cold air having nothing to do with it.

You never noticed how jealous you were towards him when you were younger. He’s the main reason you even left the town behind, forsaking everything you defined yourself just to prove to yourself that you were _smarter, witter, faster,_ just enough to stand on equal grounds.

And where did that get you? Alone in a crappy apartment, 32 with no girlfriend or boyfriend, no close friends, a never-ending job, and addicted to a certain kind of sadness.

You picture Erwin, with a clean-cut suit, leaving one of the tallest skyscrapers, perfect hair, manicured nails, perfectly clean face. Shiny shoes that were splattered with piss threw bagel.

Angelica, a co-worker that loves to poke your sides, gave you the shittiest of the munch, and in a hissy fit, you yeeted that harder than you would her wig. (You send a silent thanks to that bagel.)

But as soon as you think, you groan in embarrassment, thinking of the coffee stains in your shirt, and your unkempt hair. You should've listened to yourself in the morning when you thought you should at least do _something_ rather than looking like a wild bird's nest. You can still smell the slight cologne in his shirt, the muscles under your hands as you hug a childhood friend from too long ago. You shouldn’t have a focus on how tall he has gotten, or the buffy shoulders or his _lips_ or _hands_ as they hold you tight _—_

_Yeah no, control yourself. You thirsty hoe._

Indeed, you haven't had any human relationship since you were 24, but goddamn, you can daydream right?

A _ding!_ called your boat before it sailed off in whatever daydreams and suicidal thoughts you had.

> _‘it’s been alright, how are you doing y/n? Want to meet up?’_

_It’s been alright?_ With Erwin Smith, even your worst situations, he would shrug and say it's fine as long no limbs were lost in the process. It makes you think of old books, sunlight cutting through the cool shadows in his window as they crouch on the wooden floor, looking at the porn magazines that you discovered in your father’s room. 

Erwin blushed red, scolding you and hiding behind you, simultaneous. He looked like he would explode from shame, telling you to stop being so weird, and silly. You were eleven and he was ten, only beating him by a couple of months. 

You didn’t realize that you were crying when the tears were rolling off your smiling cheeks. 

_When did life turn so ugly?_

* * *

“So are you going to tell us who that handsome man was?” Erwin sighed for the continuous-time that afternoon, hanging his head against the window, while Hange giggled behind her hands, like a schoolchild laughing at the funny words written on the board. 

Levi kept silent, only questioning behind his eyes, which haven’t stopped his staring for the past ten minutes. 

Erwin caved, sighing as he removed a strangled piece of hair away from his eye, “He’s an old childhood friend that I lost contact with.”

If Levi was surprised, he made no move to show how strange that phrase was leaving from his lips. He’s a man-made from the picture that shows nothing but the ever-present show of power. It would be a lie if both said that they can’t picture the man anything but. 

Hange, on the other hand, shriek with delight, Waving her hands in the air, her hair losing themselves in the air as she rounded her body towards him.

“What’s he like?! When was the last time you two saw each other?!” Hange mouths off questions faster than she changed conversations mid sentences. Erwin would have ignored her if the questions themselves didn’t fit perfectly in his mouth.

He thinks of the wild hair, short in the sides and a far cry from their childhood, the air of surprise and familiarity that arose when their eyes met each other, he outgrew y/n, the way the smile cups their face, just perfectly in the light of New York, the world growing quieter with each passing second; the warm body pressed against him, a silent way of reassuring him that _yes, I’m real and I’m here._

_You, with your bored expression, while twirling your coin left hand, your palm resting in your lap, band-aids in your fingers, SpongeBob with the cartoonish colors. And so much like yourself, as you turn to him, and you smile with your body; rising to meet him, your eyes blooming like dandelions in spring, and your shoulders swaying him to come closer._

_You grin mischievously, a bad omen for law and order, as you whisper a temptation for childish glee._

_“Want to see a magic trick?”_

Erwin caught himself from smiling, but its too late now, Hange laughs in victory, Levi only questioning him with a raised eyebrow and a ludicrous expression. He turns away from them, the car window reflecting his blushed face.

The phone number safely tucked in between his legs, hiding away from any eyes, reserved only for him. The poorly drawn smiling face beamed up to him.

He’ll text him later, just when the time was right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! another chapter on the same day?? how wild. Hope you're having a good day, and all that. Stay inside and stay safe.

**Author's Note:**

> drop a kudos or i drop your spleen


End file.
